Comments on: “Cattle Class”: Shashi Tharoor’s Tempest in a Tweetpot

By: In conversation with Shashi Tharoor at Galle Literary Festival - Groundviews

In conversation with Shashi Tharoor at Galle Literary Festival - Groundviews — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:59:40 +0000

[...] In his book, Shashi’s essay on Indians who shaped his India includes only two women. Flagging Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Hema Malini, Rekha, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Arundhati Roy and even Aiswarya Rai, I asked him why he didn’t consider more fully the role of women in the shaping of India. His answer naturally progressed to the furore over his essay on the sari, and whether he regretted as a columnist ever saying or writing something (Shashi comes back to this point when a member of the audience, during question time, asked him about his ‘cattle class’ tweet!) [...]

By: DA

DA — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:17:12 +0000

The newspaper that started the story caught Mr. Tharoor's ministry attempting to get the government to pick up personal expenses.

Proof of austerity

As The Indian Express reported, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishnaâ€™s ministry pushed hard to get the government to pick his hotel bill. The only reason this did not happen was that the urban development ministry, to its credit, put its foot down and pointed to cheaper staying options.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:33:58 +0000

I still don’t understand why Mr. Tharoor’s statement was given such a twist in the game. Here in US they call it as Cattle Class which means like cows they just load people in and travel. It is a common usage and in India not surprisingly it has to be made a big hype by media. Our aam janta (common mass) should be able to take things with a pinch of humor with it. Otherwise it will be difficult to live for any person. Look at his work that he has done and has been doing for the people and I think Media should highlight on those and not catching or looking for words which will create unnecessary controversies. Anyway Mr. Tharoor good or bad – today he is known to people who didn’t know him much earlier

Cheers Dawn

By: Vinod Narayan

Vinod Narayan — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:59:47 +0000

The term followers in twitter is quite interesting especially when you consider a politician whose career is build and broken by followers.

While most of them only have either supporters or rivals (who wont claim themselves as followers), tharoor is fortunate to have followers (also read twitter followers) who both agree and disagree with him.

If you want to disagree with tharoor on twitter you have to first follow him. Isn’t that amazing

And for Cattle Class, lets hope no one starts a cattle rally saying that their name was pulled into a political debate.

People can feel bad, not all think alike, but people can also take a humor, at least when they realize its a humor

By: Sulabh

Sulabh — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:59:03 +0000

he associated community colleges as somehow related with religious and caste based communities in India.

Lol. This is funny.

By: Chitta

Chitta — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:02:22 +0000

American phrases can sometimes land you in trouble in India. Recently I was talking about the need for community colleges in India and the vice chancellor of the local university (who was an IIT prof) got really mad at me as he associated community colleges as somehow related with religious and caste based communities in India.

By: CMF

CMF — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:30:39 +0000

“Cattle class” is an American phrase, I believe. I wouldn’t expect an Indian audience to understand. Some things don’t translate well.

By: KolaNutTechie

KolaNutTechie — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:09:55 +0000

Millions of Indians travel in ‘Cattle class’ each year. To compare them to animals even in passing is class Elitism. What does one expect from this dandy who has spent a greater part of his life outside India and has promoted delusions about this place. Tharoor must stick to the job His Bimboness was appointed for in the first place: to sign coffee table books and promote the ‘All is well. India is beautiful and this is the Indian century’ charade for consumption of the western media so that institutionalized atrocities against the poor and the marginalized can continue quietly in the background (Not that the west really cares, but they are more accountable democracies and answerable to their people back home)

By: Kumar

Kumar — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:33:00 +0000

It was Kanchan Gupta who used the word ‘cattle class’.ST was simply responding to it, and couldn’t resist the pun ( holy cows). But, even if he meant Sonia and Rahul by ‘holy cows’ as some people seem to have understood that word, Tharoor has said worse things about the dynasty in his avatar as a writer. I suggest reading Kanchan Gupta’s column about this non-issue.

The discussion in the media on the Cattle class and now, the ‘work load’ tweets is obscuring the foreign policy turnarounds from Tharoor’s senior- S.M.Krishna. I mean, India actually asking US to leave Af-Pak and settle with Taliban

Meanwhile, Mr.Tharoor doesn’t seem to lack political instincts either, going by this story in India Today, an obvious plant, because no one would have noticed the story about his tweets, if he didn’t tweet about the story in the first place.

Amardeep,

There is some space for humour in Indian politics.But there are different types of humour. What would go well in UN may not create laughter in Trivandrum. This is where Tharoor needs to step up his learning curve.

By: Akash

Akash — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:09:58 +0000

Tharoor is one of the few qualified genuine politicians. The corrupt, hypocrite politicians does not like him. Ashok Gehlot asked for Tharoor's resignation, but Gehlot is also the one who supported the attack on girls in a pub in Karnataka. (check here) I feel Indians (specially the older generation) does not have a sense of humor.